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The Hollywood director Howard Hawks was taken up by European film critics in the 1950s as an early case study for auteurism, in which Hollywood directors were regarded as a film's primary author. While Hawks' work ranges across decades (1920s-70s), studios, and genres (comedy, western, war, musical, epic, adventure), his work is recognizable both stylistically and narratively. His collaborations with writers and performers, the impact of his minimalist style, and issues of heterosexual romance and homosocial groups will be emphasized.

This three-quarter sequence asks big questions of major texts in the European and American tradition. What is a good life? How should society be organized? Who belongs? How should honor, love, sin, and similar abstractions govern our actions? What duty do we owe to the past and future? The second quarter focuses on the transition from the Middle Ages to Modernity, Europe's re-acquaintance with classical antiquity and its first contacts with the New World. Authors include Dante, Shakespeare, Machiavelli, Cervantes, and Milton. N.B. This is the second of three courses in the European track. These courses offer an unparalleled opportunity to study European history and culture, past and present. Take all three to experience a year-long intellectual community dedicated to exploring how ideas have shaped our world and future. Students who take
HUMCORE 11 and
HUMCORE 12Q will have preferential admission to
HUMCORE 13Q (a WR2 seminar).

This three-quarter sequence asks big questions of major texts in the European and American tradition. What is a good life? How should society be organized? Who belongs? How should honor, love, sin, and similar abstractions govern our actions? What duty do we owe to the past and future? This third and final quarter focuses on the modern period, from the rise of revolutionary ideas to the experiences of totalitarianism and decolonization in the twentieth century. Authors include Locke, Mary Shelley, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Weber, Primo Levi, and Frantz Fanon.

Even if many of us don't fully believe in an afterlife, we remain fascinated by visions of it. This course focuses on Near-Death Experiences and the stories around them, investigating them from the many perspectives pertinent to the growing field of narrative medicine: medical, neurological, cognitive, psychological, sociological, literary, and filmic. The goal is not to understand whether the stories are veridical but what they do for us, as individuals, and as a culture, and in particular how they seek to reshape the patient-doctor relationship. Materials will span the 20th century and come into the present. Taught in English.

Last offered: Autumn 2017
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI

FRENCH 87N:The New Wave: How The French Reinvented Cinema

Focus on the French New Wave's cinematic revolution of 1959-1962. In a few years, the Nouvelle Vague delivered landmark works such as Truffaut's 400 Blows, Godard's Breathless, Chabrol's Les Cousins or Resnais' Hiroshima mon amour, and changed forever the way we make and think about movies. Why did these films look so radically fresh? What do they say about France's youth culture in the early 60s? How is the author's theory behind them still influencing us today? Focus is on cultural history, aesthetic analysis, interpretation of narrative, sound and visual forms. Taught in English. NOTE: Class meets Tuesday/Thursday 12:00-1:20pm; film screenings Monday 6:00-8:50pm in room 540-108

FRENCH 110:French Painting from Watteau to Monet (ARTHIST 110, ARTHIST 310, FRENCH 310)

This course offers a survey of painting in France from 1700 to around 1900. It introduces major artists, artworks, and the concepts used by contemporary observers and later art historians to make sense of this extraordinarily rich period. Overarching themes discussed in the class will include the dueling legacies of coloristic virtuosity and classical formalism, new ways of representing visual perception, the opposing artistic effects of absorption and theatricality, the rise and fall of official arts institutions, and the participation of artists and artworks in political upheaval and social change. The course ends with an interrogation of the concept of modernity and its emergence out of dialogue and conflict with artists of the past. Students will learn and practice formal analysis of paintings, as well as interpretations stressing historical context.

Last offered: Winter 2019
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II

FRENCH 120:Coffee and Cigarettes: The Making of French Intellectual Culture

Examines a quintessential French figure "l'intellectuel" from a long-term historical perspective. We will observe how this figure was shaped over time by such other cultural types as the writer, the artist, the historian, the philosopher, and the moralist. Proceeding in counter-chronological order, from the late 20th to the 16th century, we will read a collection of classic French works. As this course is a gateway for French studies, special emphasis will be placed on oral proficiency. Taught in French; readings in French.

FRENCH 129:Camus (COMPLIT 229B, CSRE 129, HISTORY 235F)

"The Don Draper of Existentialism" for Adam Gopnik, "the ideal husband of contemporary letters" for Susan Sontag, and "the admirable conjunction of a man, of an action, and of a work" for Sartre, Camus embodies the very French figure of the "intellectuel engagé," or public intellectual. From his birth in 1913 into a poor family in Algeria to the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957, from Paris to the Mediterranean world, Camus engaged in the great ethical battles of his time, from the fight against nazism and communism, from questioning colonial rules to the Algerian War of Independence. Through readings and films, we will explore his multiple, long-lasting legacies. Readings from Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Kamel Daoud, Mouloud Feraoun, Alice Kaplan, A.B. Yehoshua, Yasmina Khadra. This course is a WIM course. Students will work on their production of written French, in addition to speaking French and reading comprehension. Taught in French. Prerequisite:
FRENLANG 124 or consent of instructor.

FRENCH 130:Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance French Literature

This introduction to classic French texts from the twelfth to the sixteenth century investigates the birth of a national literature. Ranging from epic adventures to sublime poetry to obscene comedy, these works shaped modern understandings of love, duty, gender, otherness, and the self. These literary landmarks allow us to analyze past cultures dramatically different than our own while reflecting on their lessons for the present. Students will learn to read texts closely, examine their historical contexts from the Crusades to the Wars of Religion, and situate them alongside visual artworks and music from the time. All readings, discussions and writing assignments will be in French. Prerequisite:
FRENLANG 124 or permission of instructor. This course fulfills the Writing in the Major (WIM) requirement.

FRENCH 131:Absolutism, Enlightenment, and Revolution in 17th- and 18th-Century France

The literature, culture, and politics of France from Louis XIV to Olympe de Gouges. How this period produced the political and philosophical foundations of modernity. Readings may include Corneille, Molière, Racine, Lafayette, Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, Beaumarchais, and Gouges. Taught in French. Prerequisite:
FRENLANG 124 or consent of instructor.